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Indian Arm Wrestle

Have you ever had one of those Indian arm wrestles, where you take on the other guy and try to win? Come on, even the girls have tried it when they were young! It was about trying to prove who was stronger. Allow me let you in on a little secret. I’m not that physically […]

Have you ever had one of those Indian arm wrestles, where you take on the other guy and try to win? Come on, even the girls have tried it when they were young! It was about trying to prove who was stronger.

Allow me let you in on a little secret. I’m not that physically strong. So, most times, when I had an arm wrestle, I was the losing end. Most times. And from experience, I can tell you, losing all the time is not a lot of fun.

So, have you ever had an arm wrestle with God? You want to head off in this direction, because, well … that’s what you want to do. That’s what makes sense to you. It seems like a good thing.

And yet, there are lots of good things out there, really good things, that aren’t part of God’s plan, either for you, or in the bigger scheme of things. So what God does, is that He blocks you. But you’ve been there before, so you push back harder still. And He blocks you again. So you try a different route, you come at it from a different angle. And surprise, surprise, He blocks you again.

Stop, stand back: who do you imagine is going to win that little Indian arm wrestle do you think?

Paul and those with him went through the areas of Phrygia and Galatia because the Holy Spirit did not allow them to tell the Good News in the province of Asia. (Acts 16:6)

So it’s not just you and me, it happened to the guy who wrote almost half the books in the New Testament, Paul the Apostle.

Why did God do that? Well, maybe it wasn’t the right time for Paul to go there. Or perhaps God knew of some danger that He didn’t want Paul stumbling into. Or maybe, just maybe (and this one happens a lot) God actually had something better planned for Paul to do.

So When God has a different plan, we can either fight Him or yield to Him. And when we choose to yield to God, when we let Him have His way with a good heart, with a glad heart, with a heart that’s willing to give up what we wanted, then untold blessing and power end up dropping on our lives.